Square Enix launches cloud gaming portal with Hitman: Blood Money

Square Enix has jumped into cloud gaming with a service of its own called Core Online.

You can use it to play Square Enix games in a browser.

The launch games are IO titles Hitman: Blood Money and Mini Ninjas. Coming soon are Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, Tomb Raider Underworld and Gyromancer.

Click on the Hitman play now button and you'll be asked your age before you're shown the game's missions in a grid.

Click play now on one of the missions and you'll be asked to install the Square Enix Secure Launcher. Once the game begins, you get 10 minutes of play time. After this expires, you're asked to watch an advert to earn additional minutes of playtime. Or you can pay $0.49 to unlock the level. Or you can pay $4.99 for the entire game.

We were given a choice of a Mini Ninjas Adventures ad that lasts for one minute and 15 seconds for 25 minutes of game time; a Game Globe ad for 24 seconds for eight minutes of gaming; and a one minute one second Koozac ad for 20 minutes of game time.

Clicking through, we were shown a YouTube video of Mini Ninjas Adventures. Click away and the video pauses. Don't worry, it'll wait for you to come back. At any point you can accumulate a maximum game time of 60 minutes.